Times 25995 – with marmalade

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I tackled this one while enjoying tea and toast in bed, in order to post a timely blog. It took me about fifteen minutes until I was left with 1d and 12a, which had me stumped for a little while until the PDM arrived. Nothing too obscure or hard to parse, but a few of the definitions felt a bit loose. No doubt, as usual, someone will improve on my explanations here and there.

Across
1 CHUBBY – C (head of co-op), HUBBY (union man, i.e. married man); def. with some corporation? My FOI.
4 SPANKING – Cryptic DD, where one = spanking as in spanking new, unblemished.
10 CEDARWOOD – (A CODE WORD)*; def. furniture maker.
11 BLAST – Another DD of sorts.
12 ODE – An ODE is a composition and it sounds like OWED = outstanding.
13 HMS PINAFORE – Def. ‘light work’, as G&S works can be called ‘light opera’. The anagram is (ON HIS FARM PE)*, the PE being the ends of packhorse.
14 ASTERN – A STERN (rigid); def. back.
16 GENOESE – GEESE (birds) with NO absorbed, def. Italian, a chap from Genoa.
19 AUDITOR – AUTO (car) around ID (papers) reversed, then R (end of year); def. one hears. I had the answer in before parsing then had to find the ‘other way’ which didn’t involve AUDI as the car, which is I assume just a coincidence.
20 OGRESS – Monstrous woman, hidden reversed in le(SSER GO)rgons.
22 GIDEON BIBLE – (BEING BOILED)*, def. hotel guide. Not my kind of guide, and the Gideons seem to be having less success these days in infiltrating hotel rooms; I’ve never found one in France so maybe it’s illegal under the secular French Republic. Or do they only print in English?
25 CUE – Def. hint, sounds like the letter Q.
26 LOOSE – LOOS = ladies and gentlemen’s; E for ecstasy; def. promiscuous.
27 ELABORATE – Another DD; elaborate as in ‘tell me more’, and elaborate as in ornate, busy with decoration.
28 NEPOTISM – POT IS inside NEM, which is MEN reversed = contrary people; def. keeping it in the family.
29 WHERRY – WHY (question) around ERR (stray); def. vessel. A cargo sailboat typically used on canals, Norfolk Broads, etc.

Down
1 CUCKOO – This nearly drove me cuckoo too. A DD, cuckoo means cracked, potty, and a cuckoo lays eggs. Geddit?
2 UNDRESSED – Obvious cryptic double def. This was my second in and gave me hopes of a really speedy progression, which soon fizzled out.
3 BIRCH – H (hard), CRIB (copy), all reversed (up); def. tree.
5 PADDINGTON BEAR – Def. lover of marmalade, he lives on sandwiches made of it I understand. ADDING TON = putting on weight, under P (pressure), then BEAR = stomach.
6 NO-BRAINER – Def, totally clear. If you have your head in the clouds you’re not in the real world, but above the cloud? Then again, it could be NOB (head) RAINER (rain-cloud). Is there such a thing as a rainer?
7 IMAGO – MAG (publication) inside I O (middle of priory); def. adult, the adult stage of an insect.
8 GATHERED – THERE (comforting word, as in ‘there, there’), inside GAD (seventh son of Jacob); def. assumed.
9 COPS AND ROBBERS – Ha ha. Children’s game; ROBBERS = people who nick things, and COPS = people who nick thieves, so two kinds of nicker.
15 EXTROVERT – EX ROVER (old dog), insert T (head of tiger), then add T (tail of cat); def. he’s no mouse.
17 EASY CHAIR – Easy cryptic definition.
18 PANGOLIN – PAIN (agony) with (LONG)* inside; PA(NGOL)IN; def. anteater. The scaly variety, found in Africa, Asia and crosswords.
21 HERESY – HERE’S Y ! being ‘let me present the last letter of blasphemy’. Clever stuff.
23 DROOP – O (Omani capital) inside DROP (dash); def. flag, as in tire, flop down. I’m a little uncomfortable with DROP = dash, as in dash one’s hopes? No, it’s drop as in just a dash of water in my whisky please; as terencep noted.
24 EPOCH – COP reversed in EH? (what?); def. a remarkable (long) time.

43 comments on “Times 25995 – with marmalade”

  1. 23m today so I found this straightforward. I BIFD 21d so thanks for explanation. I also hesitated over the bible having only come across it before as GIDEON’S though it had to be right from the anagrist. Thanks for blog.
  2. Three easy ones on the trot then. Another stroll around the park with nothing really to comment on.
  3. I took it to be a small quantity, as in a drop or dash of water in ones whiskey. Some good definitions here, such as union man for hubby and hotel guide for Gideon Bible. A little on the easy side but very enjoyable.
  4. 20:12 so a gentle stroll (or in jimbo’s case, two strolls apparently). I went for NOB RAINER but now cannot find RAINER as a word. PANGOLIN has come up recently but perhaps not in The Times. Thanks for the blog pip.

    Edited at 2015-01-14 09:29 am (UTC)

    1. It’s a tongue in cheek definition I think. That’s definitely how I would have parsed it anyway.
    2. I’m fairly sure PANGOLIN came up during the recent Christmas University Challenge series (the one which tests how much “distinguished alumni” have forgotten), if you happen to have watched any of that.
      1. Thanks sotira. I did see a few of these but was concerned that my alma mater would come up which would of necessity have involved the ubiquitous and oleaginous Stephen Fry. I was shot of the place before he appeared there.

        Edited at 2015-01-14 02:23 pm (UTC)

  5. 44 minutes and 1dn / 12ac were my last in too. PANGOLIN was a bit of a guess from wordplay but sounded vaguely familiar. Not entirely convinced by “guide = bible” but perhaps I’m missing something?
    1. 4th definition in Collins says “any book regarded as authoritative”, which I would think covers it?
  6. For some reason they all went in quite easily today, despite not really knowing PANGOLIN or WHERRY (although both words rang a bell).

    PADDINGTON BEAR would be unknown to Australians I would think, if not for the role it (he?) played in bringing down a member of Bob Hawke’s cabinet in the 80’s. Must take care with those customs declarations.

    COD to HERESY. Thanks setter and blogger.

  7. 15:44 .. including, like our blogger, a few minutes on 1d and 12a at the end.

    Some belting good surfaces in this one. “Adult publication buried in middle of priory” and the “Promiscuous ladies and gentlemen …” stand out. But it must be said that the editor is being quite gentle with us at the moment.

  8. 24 min – but eventually put ONE at 12ac: a composition which (sounds like) WON would be outstanding, as I couldn’t think of anything better. Otherwise the brilliant HERESY was LOI.
  9. 9m. Another easy one, with quite a few BIFD, but there’s a touch of humour to this that I really enjoyed.
    ‘Lover of marmalade’ could not be more obvious to me. I grew up with Paddington Bear (not literally you understand), and saw the movie with 11 kids on Sunday. Apparently lots of grown-ups are turning up slightly sheepishly to see it without kids, and I can understand why.
    1. The wife and I went to see it before Christmas; I wouldn’t say we were sheepish, exactly, though we did take the precaution of going to the “Silver Screen” showing (one where cinephiles of a certain age get free tea and biscuits before the show) to increase the chances of us not being the oldest people there by a really obvious margin 🙂
  10. 30mins, so yes, another on the easy side here too.

    COD: IMAGO for misdirection of ‘adult publication”.

    And, yes, I’ll fess up to taking my OH to see Paddington sans enfants (teens) who all declined my invitation…

  11. Just under 10 minutes, so that’s three very similar in three days, though if I had to choose I think I’d say this was the most enjoyable. Good to see I wasn’t the only one left staring at 21dn and sternly telling myself to resist writing in HEREBY, because even if it was the only word I could see which fitted, it didn’t make any sense.
  12. Yes, another easy one, midway between Monday’s and Tuesday’s in terms of time spent – 22 minutes. I was a bit slow at the start, and switched to the downs, which seemed easier, to speed things up.
  13. I have seen French-language Gideons Bibles in French hotel rooms – though less often than in England. A French Gideon also gave me a French-language New Testament in a market-place in Brittany a few years ago.
  14. 10:50 so yes, in terms of difficulty somewhere between the week’s previous two offerings.

    LOI was ode, took too long too see what was needed. I didn’t know yer man Gad and had trouble unravelling 19, partly because of the accidental Audi and partly because my stoopid brain chose to process “end of year” as Y.

    If I could draw I could draw you a pangolin (with pink felt tip used for the nose) and I know wherry mainly from the wonderful eponymous beer brewed by Woodforde’s.

  15. 7:44 so as Penfold says midway between Monday and Tuesday in terms of difficulty.

    Are our setters being sponsored by the new film of Paddington? – the DT had “Cuddly character providing extra material for a Bronte novel (10,4)” the other Saturday.

  16. A bit over 15 minutes for me, with ODE my LOI, as I couldn’t get past due until I cracked the cuckoo clue. I though “layer” splendidly deceptive for the bird, as it usually leads to hen, chicken and such, and I thought there might possibly have been something of a cock-up, with two C’s the only crossers I had. Lots of amusement and whimsy to brighten this one up, and like others I was much taken with the HERESY clue.
    On the Gideons, from their own website: “Today, over 250,000 members work in over 190 countries placing a total of over 80 million copies of the Word of God annually…Internationally over 1.5 billion Scriptures have been presented.”
    Don’t think they’ve missed out on France: perhaps secular French people are too embarrassed to buy bibles, and resort to nicking them from hotel rooms?

    Edited at 2015-01-14 01:26 pm (UTC)

  17. 10 mins, so very much in keeping with the rest of the week so far. Count me as another who spent time at the end on the CUCKOO/ODE crossers, and like Z8 I had been fixated on “due” before the penny dropped. I agree that there was an element of humour in this puzzle that made the solve a more enjoyable experience.
  18. 14 minutes between 4 of us at work. Is it me or has the whole of January so far been easier than normal? Is January the year’s Monday?

    I’m quite fond of the fact that HMS PINAFORE is an anagram of NAME FOR SHIP. I don’t know if this was intentional on the part of G&S, but I’ve always assumed so.

  19. Something tells me we are being lulled into a sense of false security…
    Oh, and Mrs Deezzaa and I went to see Paddington Bear when visiting Stratford on a wet weekend with nothing better to do on Sunday evening. And what’s more we thorougly enjoyed it. There are actually lots of knowing references to film classics (such as Les Parapluis de Cherbourg), so something for everyone of all ages.
  20. Around 20 mins which is fast for me – however it took me 17 mins (twice my normal time) to do the Quicky – so a game of two halves. Last ones in were 1dn and 12ac.
  21. I’m going to sound as though I’m just repeating earlier comments, but pretty easy, around 20 minutes, held up at the end by 1D and 12A, and COD to HERESY, which is quite clever. Now I’ll deviate: I don’t know anything about PADDINGTON BEAR at all, I just ID’d him from the wordplay. Regards to all.
  22. Quite enjoyable despite a few words I didn’t know (PANGOLIN for one), but one mistake (IMAGO the other word I didn’t know — I had IRAGO, with the wrong publication). ODE my LOI — it took a while to see the Connection to “outstanding”. Some amusing clues, such as 1 ac.
  23. Not a bad time, but somwhat distracted by Tottenham being behind to Burnley. Oops, Spurs have just equalised on the stroke of half-time. Perhaps I can concentrate on the Quick now.
  25. 10:21 for me, held up at the end in exactly the same the same way as Z and Andy, wanting 12ac to be DUE. A most enjoyable puzzle – they seem to be improving as the week goes on.
  26. Had much to say about yesterday’s puzzle, especially the msuical theme. And, although there were and X and a Z missing, I wondered if anyone has ever seen a pangram in this (double-E) grid.

    But couldn’t post because my internet connection is up and down like an ecdysiast’s netherwear.

    For this puzzle: 19:50 and a bit less to say. The GIDEON anagram was good, as was the PINAFORE. With the fodder to hand, it was hard to see what the first word would be. And it turned out not to be a word at all. But all’s fair.

    LOsI were in the bottom right: HERESY and CUE; which now both seem quite simple. The latter reminded me of the difficulty of reciting the alphabet in some French schools.

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